11/07/2000 @ 12:18PM

Forbes Faces: John Doerr

If you believe the stereotypes, Silicon Valley is brimming with self-interested, politically apathetic millionaires. During the 2000 election, however, some big-name venture capitalists have spent millions from their own personal fortunes on a couple of ballot initiatives–educational initiatives, no less.

John Doerr,
John
Doerr
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
‘ famed venture capitalist, built his reputation by investing in companies like Compaq Computer
, Sun Microsystems
and Amazon.com
. Recently the 49-year-old has added political investments to his credits. Doerr, along with his wife, Ann, donated $6 million to back Proposition 39, a ballot initiative that would allow California schools to pass bonds for construction and repairs, and prohibit bond money from going to administrative salaries or operating costs.

The Doerrs dipped into the family bank account and convinced their circle of millionaire friends to do the same; they’ve raised an additional $13 million to support the proposition. Not included in Doerr’s list of friendly donators is Tim Draper of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Draper was too busy rallying support for his own hotly debated ballot initiative, Proposition 38. This voucher initiative would give California students $4,000 for tuition to attend private schools instead of public schools. Draper spent more than $23 million of his own money to back the proposition.

Lest anyone gets weepy-eyed, it should be noted that tech executives’ sudden zealous interest in education isn’t entirely altruistic. A growing shortage of unskilled labor presents a dire threat to the technology industry. Anything that hurts the tech industry at large will trickle down to hurt venture capitalists.

Without a stellar education, John Doerr would never have become Kleiner Perkins’ rock star venture capitalist. Doerr, a St. Louis native, received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Rice University, then got an MBA from Harvard College. Before Doerr joined Kleiner Perkins in 1980, he started his career at
Intel
, where he held various marketing, sales and engineering positions.